Facebook Loser
by jinkiez
Summary: Kyle wonders how everyone but himself has hundreds of friends on their facebook pages.


_I wrote this very quickly. I was inspired by the new episode, which hasn't aired yet. All I know is that it's about Facebook._

* * *

Kyle ran frantically down the street, busting through the front door of his home so he could get online right away. He threw his backpack on the floor and started the computer once he reached his room.

He immediately logged onto Facebook, checking to see if he'd gotten any new messages or friend requests. This website was really popular with kids at school. He joined it about a week ago, and had been checking everyday to see if there was anything new, although often to no avail.

Once again, he was greeted by the familiar text telling him that he had "0 new messages" and "0 friend" reminders on his page. He clicked the "refresh" button about 10 times just to make sure it was for real. Unfortunately, it was.

He looked at his other classmates pages - they all had at _least_ 200 friends. _200 fucking friends_. How the hell did they get so many? There were only about 500 people in South Park altogether - and at least half of that population consisted of creepy elderly that never left their log cabins to see the light of day. None of them even owned computers. Kyle didn't understand. He even found Butters' friend page - Butters had almost _500_ friends. Hardly anyone talked to Butters at school. What was going on here?

After creeping around everyone's friend pages, he found Cartman's profile. He checked the friend count..it was over a thousand. '_Holy...1099 friends? No way._' Kyle thought. There was _no way_ that fatass was so popular. This was a nightmare - his most hated enemy was more popular than him. He had to beat him..he wouldn't be able to live with himself having just zero facebook friends.

But how could he possibly get over 1000?

It was going to take a lot of hard work, that was for sure. He clicked off the internet and ran to his best friend's house. After ringing the doorbell desperately, Stan appeared at the door. "Hey Kyle. What's the matter?" he asked, seeing the sunken expression on Kyle's face.

"You _have_ to help me!" Kyle cried. "What happened?" Stan looked worried. Something _really_ bad must have happened. With the mortified look on his friend's face, and the tears threatening to spill from the corners of his eyes, it had to be something terrible.

Kyle sniffled and wiped his nose with his sleeve, then finally spoke. "I have zero friends on facebook!" he cried.

"..What?" Stan paused in disbelief.

"I know, it's awful!" Kyle stammered.

"No..I mean, you came over here and freaked me out over this? You've gotta be kidding me." Stan was just about to shut the door, but Kyle budged his foot in it. "You don't understand! I need your help!"

"What do you want me to do about it?" he rolled his eyes.

"Just sign up for facebook and add me as a friend!" he cried desperately. Stan shook his head. "No. That website's stupid - I'm not wasting my time joining it."

"Pleaseeee! You have to add me!" Kyle grabbed the edge of Stan's coat and begged mercilessly. He seemed really obsessed about this website. Stan sighed, and reluctantly he gave in. "Alright, alright! I'll make a stupid facebook account."

"YES!" Kyle's eyes lit up and he hugged his friend. "I need to go try and get more friends - See ya, Stan!" and with that, he ran out the door.

Later that night, Kyle was delighted to see that he had one new friend request. It was from Stan. He clicked on Stan's profile page to send him a message - but then his jaw dropped.

'_Stan Marsh has 653 friends_' the profile read. There were tons of comments all over his page - people sending him links to funny videos and commenting on his pictures. And yet his account was only a few hours old. What the _hell_ was going on!

Kyle clicked on his own profile page again. _1 friend. 0 messages_. He'd created the account over a week ago.

He shut off his computer, then threw himself on the bed and burried his face into his pillow. His worst fear was confirmed - he was a _loser_.

Kyle woke up the next morning super tired - he'd hardly gotten any sleep. All he could do was worry and get up every 10 minutes to check his facebook page for any new activity. He was so sure that other people might recognize him on Stan's page, and add him as a friend too - yet there was still absolutely nothing. He didn't want to look like a desperate geek by sending friend requests to other people, though. He was pretty sure cool people didn't do that.

He sulked into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He was already late for school.

"Hey Kenny!' Kyle called in the hallways - he walked up to the large orange jacket that seemed to consume the boy alive, and smiled. "Did you sign up for facebook yet?" he asked, a bit of impatience in his voice.

Kenny, as usual, spoke in a voice muffled by his hood. Kyle understood him clearly, though. "Nope - my dial up internet wouldn't work. Windows '85 crashed five times, and I gave up."

"Dammit!" Kyle yelled, clenching his fists. Kenny raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, dude. It's no problem! Don't even worry about it." he stomped off, muttering curses under his breath. Getting one thousand friends was going to be the most difficult thing _ever_.

At lunch, Kyle looked to Butters for advice - who was sitting alone eating a sandwich. He gestured a "psst" at him, and Butters turned his head. "Hey Butters. I need to ask you a question."

"Sure! What is it?" Butters piped cheerily. Kyle sat across from him at the empty table and folded his hands, obviously distressed. "You know the website Facebook, right?" he began.

"Well sure - I use it a lot." Butters replied. "Yeah, well, how do people get over 600 friends on there? I mean, do they _really_ know that many people in real life?" he asked, completely puzzled. Kyle was usually pretty good at math, but this time the numbers just didn't add up. This was a mystery even a genius couldn't solve.

Butters rubbed his knuckles, thinking of what to say for a moment before he spoke. "Wuh, well, I guess they're just popular. I mean, they must have lots of friends..and they're probably really cool and stuff..and, yeah."

Kyle thought for a moment. Butters _didn't_ have lots of friends; it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. And he certainly wasn't _really cool_, either. He saw a drop of sweat form on Butters' forehead as he studied his nervous expression. He could tell that Butters wasn't telling the whole truth.

"Butters; is there something you're not telling me?" he questioned suspiciously.

"Wuh-what do ya mean?" the boy stuttered - trying, but failing to play dumb.

"Aw come on. I saw your facebook page - there's no way you know _that_ many people. If you're so popular, then why do you always sit by yourself at lunch?"

Butters took to rolling his knuckles together again nervously. "Because people are intimidated by my popularness?" he answered; more of a question than an answer.

"Yeah right! I don't believe you one bit. Now tell me how you _really_ got that many friends." Kyle tried to sound intimidating, but it probably didn't work. He still wanted to coax an answer out of him.

Butters sighed. He knew he wasn't any good at lying and keeping secrets. It would only be a matter of time before the truth was forced out of him, anyway. "OK, OK." He waved his hands in surrender. "I..I aint supposed to tell you this, but Eric's in charge of it all. He's the one sellin' facebook buddies."

Kyle shook his head. "_Selling_ facebook buddies?"

"Well..nobody wants to be a loser without any friends - so he sells em' to kids that wanna be more popular and stuff. It costs 10 cents per friend - o-or you can buy them in bulk and get a discount." Butters explained. He pulled out a book of coupons from his backpack and handed one to Kyle. "Here, I get freebies for referring customers. Y-you can use that coupon to get 25% off. It lasts til' April 15th."

Kyle ripped the coupon in half. _What a retard_, he thought. He stormed out of the cafeteria and headed straight for the computer room - where he knew he'd find the tubby lard.

Sure enough, Cartman sat in the corner of the room - he occupied the computer teacher's desk while he was out on lunch break. A geeky boy with large glasses sat by his side, typing away at the computer. Kyle trudged in angrily, and Cartman grinned as he approached his desk. "Well well well. If it isn't _Kahl_. Let me guess..nobody wants to be your pathetic little e-friend, huh?"

Kyle glared at him. "That isn't why I'm here, fatass! I think what you're doing is wrong, and-"

Cartman waved a hand and cut him off before he could continue. "Kahl, Kahl. You don't seem to understand. You see, in life, popularity means everything. It's what everybody wants. The more friends you have, the more power. Do you want to be a weakling, or do you want to be powerful?"

The green hatted boy rolled his eyes. "THEY'RE NOT REAL FRIENDS!" he yelled. "They're just stupid little numbers on a page! They mean absolutely nothing!"

"Maybe to you they don't. But to other people who look at your page, they mean _everything_." Cartman knew that he would get to Kyle with a little intimidation. He knew that Kyle wanted to be popular just as much as anyone else.

"That's a bunch of bullcrap! People don't care how many "friends" you have!" he argued - though Kyle knew his stance couldn't be further from the truth, he just didn't want to admit it.

"Sure, sure. Keep telling yourself that. Meanwhile, people are just going to click on your profile and look at how many friends you have - and then they'll laugh. They'll think "_Oh man, that kid is such a loser! He has no friends!_" And before you know it, the only friends you'll have left at school will be people like _Scott Malkinson_." he taunted with a smile.

"Whatever! I don't _care_ what people think of me - I'm deleting my facebook and never going on there again!" Kyle yelled as he began to walk out.

"Go ahead. They'll just think you're even lamer if you delete it. The only people that _don't_ have facebooks nowadays are social hermits. I guess you're crab person, Kahl? Are you a crab?" he chuckled as he watched Kyle leave.

Kyle stopped at the door of the room, sighed, and turned back around. He was defeated. "...God dammit...How much will it cost?"

Cartman smiled smugly. "Only about one million dollars." he said, resting his hands on the desk.

"That's ridiculous." Kyle furrowed his eyebrows - obviously this pricing was different than what Butters had mentioned.

"Alright alright..fifty dollars. For fifty bucks, you can get about 600 friends." Cartman said.

"No way - I don't even _have_ fifty dollars!"

"Then give me your jew gold." Cartman said, his expression completely serious.

"W-what..?" Kyle felt the lumpy necklace around his neck - he couldn't just give up his Jew gold..that would be like..letting Cartman win. And letting Cartman win was like losing a testicle.

Still, he _really_ didn't want to be a loser..and in his mind, the price of not being picked on by other kids for not having lots of online friends was probably worth it. He tugged at the string around his neck, revealing a chain, and began to unfasten the back of it. Cartman smirked - he could practically taste the gold in his mind at that moment. But then Butters burst through the door of the computer room, startling them both.

"Don't do it!" Butters yelled suddenly. "Butters..what the fuck?" Cartman growled.

"Kyle - don't give Cartman your Jew gold! He ain't nothin' but a liar and a cheat! It's not worth it to pay for friends..they'll never be _real_ anyway. I..I just realized that."

Kyle rolled his eyes. "Of course they aren't real, Butters - they're computer generated."

"Yeah but..w-wait, they are?" Butters raised an eyebrow.

"Duh! Did you really think there's real people behind them sending you adoring messages and telling you that you're awesome every 30 minutes? It's all fake."

"Wuh- but..I knew they weren't real _friends_, but I thought they were at least real _people_. That's what it says in the ad!" he argued.

Kyle sighed. "No, Butters. Everything's set on a timer - Cartman paid that little geek over there," he pointed to the third grader in the corner, "To hack into facebook's system. It's pretty easy to figure out...What I _don't_ get, however, is why people care so much about some stupid number on a page." he complained. "You see, I learned something today... Friends don't really make a person who they are, but-"

Butters, consumed by anger, cut Kyle off during his speech. "Nevermind that, Kyle! I'm gonna tell everyone about Cartman's business being a scam! Why, I paid for _real_ fake friends, not robotic ones!"

The blonde boy threw his coupon booklet on the floor and ran out of the room, leaving Cartman to panic. "Wait, Butters! NO! Dammit, come back!" he got up and ran out of the room after him, huffing heavily and heaving behind considerably.

Kyle sighed, then smiled. Maybe fatass would _finally_ learn a lesson about scamming people. He was so proud of Butters for standing up for once.

The nerdy third grader behind the computer fixed his glasses and looked up at him. "Hey, does this mean I can go now?" he asked in a nasal tone.

"Umm..yeah, I guess." Kyle smiled. "You should probably like..go play outside, and make some friends, or something."

He just shrugged. "Nah. I'd rather play Pokemon Online. I just have to go to the bathroom." he got up and left the room. His pants rode up to his chest like highwaters, and the gray knee-high socks peaked out from underneath them.

Seeing that made Kyle actually feel pretty OK with himself. Because no matter how few friends he had, he would at least never be as much of a loser as _that_ kid.


End file.
